Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
4:03 | Why did the Germans segregate Jewish American prisoners of war inside the camps as the war was ending? Captured B-17 Navigator Michael Gold tries to understand this question. At least his camp was run by the Luftwaffe and held mainly aviators. This afforded them some degree of respect.
Keywords : Prisoner Of War (POW) Jewish Adolf Hitler slave labor Stalag Luft 1 Luftwaffe officer escape tunnel solitary William Marshall Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Veterans Administration (VA) Michael Gold
At six years of age he was impressed by Lindbergh's flight and he named his cat Lindy. When war broke out, he enlisted in the Air Corps and joined the Allied forces as a B-17 navigator. Michael Gold had wanted to join the Canadian Air Force even before Pearl Harbor, so it was natural that he would not miss the opportunity.
Michael Gold was sent to San Antonio to begin aviation cadet training and he felt he didn't have the manual dexterity to be a pilot but he knew he was strong in math so he went for navigator. It wasn't long before he was assigned to a B-17 crew and deciding whether or not to buzz Niagara Falls on the way to England.
It was only his third mission when B-17 navigator Michael Gold had to bail out over Germany. But for a last minute burst of wind, he would have been captured by a yard full of German schoolgirls, but it was a farmer with an old gun that wound up taking him in to the Luftwaffe.
The German interrogator knew more about his bomb group than he did and after a short questioning, Michael Gold was off to a POW camp where he was lucky to share a barracks with the other officers from his crew. The German rations were supplemented with Red Cross parcels that arrived from Sweden.
It was twice a day roll call and cold showers in the POW camp for B-17 navigator Michael Gold. But, as a non-smoker, he could trade his Red Cross cigarettes for a prized delicacy that he loves to this day. Through secret means, the Allied prisoners were able to keep up with news from the war.
The war was surely lost for the Germans, but in the POW camp where B-17 Navigator Michael Gold was held, the extreme Nazi ideology was still being played out. A Jewish and black "ghetto" barracks was created in the compound and he was forced to move there. It was also about this time that success for the Allied bombers translated to lost rations for the men. This caused a change to the conversation in the evenings.
One morning at roll call, the German Commandant of the POW camp announced that President Roosevelt had passed away. Soon, the guards disappeared and the Russian Army liberated the camp. After being sent to Camp Lucky Strike, he went out on a lark to see Europe before he left.
